Burn-in
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(′bərn ′in)
(electronics) Operation of electronic components before they are applied in order to stabilize their characteristics and reveal defects.
(engineering) freeze
(graphic arts) A method for giving specified areas of the image extra exposure while protecting the rest of the image.
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burn in
(1) To test a new electronic system by running it for some length of time. Although electronics can give out at any time, weak components often fail within the first few hours of use. For example, when a computer is built to order, it is often turned on and allowed to run for several hours before being released to the customer. See burn.
(2) (burn-in) The persistence of a faint image on CRTs and plasma TVs, both of which create a display by causing phosphors to glow. Also called "ghosting," burn-in occurs when static images are displayed continuously, and the glass is actually etched with the color phosphors. Quite common on early computer CRTs, it also occurred on first-generation plasma TVs. Although new plasma sets have burn-in countermeasures, the screen can still be burned if used for the same video game played hours on end with on-screen objects that never change.
Burn-In Vs. Image Retention
Although the terms "burn-in" and "image retention" are often used synonymously, burn-in is permanent, while image retention is temporary, and the image will disappear after some period of time. See CRT, plasma and LCD vs. plasma.
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Burn-in
This article is about the use of a product early in its life cycle, intended to improve user satisfaction. For "burn-in" that damages display hardware, see Screen burn-in.
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Burn-in is the process by which components of a system are exercised prior to being placed in service (and often, prior to the system being completely assembled from those components).
The intention is to detect those particular components that would fail as a result of the initial, high-failure rate portion of the bathtub curve of component reliability. If the burn-in period is made sufficiently long (and, perhaps, artificially stressful), the system can then be trusted to be mostly free of further early failures once the burn-in process is complete.
A precondition for a successful burn-in is a bathtub-like failure rate, that is, there are noticeable early failures with a decreasing failure rate following that period. By stressing all devices for a certain burn-in time the devices with the highest failure rate fail first and can be taken out of the cohort. The devices that survive the stress have a later position in the bathtub curve (with an appropriately lower ongoing failure rate).
Thus by applying a burn-in, early in-use system failures can be avoided at the expense (tradeoff) of a reduced yield caused by the burn-in process.
When the equivalent lifetime of the stress is extended into the increasing part of the bathtub-like failure-rate curve, the effect of the burn-in is a reduction of product lifetime. In a mature production it is not easy to determine whether there is a decreasing failure rate. To determine the failure time distribution for a very low percentage of the production, one would have to destroy a very large number of devices.
When possible, it is better to eliminate the root cause of early failures than doing a burn-in. Because of this, a process that initially uses burn-in may eventually phase it out as the various root causes for failures are identified and eliminated.
For electronic components, burn-in is frequently conducted at elevated temperature and perhaps elevated voltage. This process may also be called heat soaking. The components may be under continuous test or simply tested at the end of the burn-in period.
There is another use of the term by some audiophiles, who leave new audio equipment turned on for multiple days or weeks, to get the components to achieve optimal performance. However, many debates have arisen about the benefits of this practice.
See also
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
Translations:
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Burn-in
Dansk (Danish)
n. - brændemærke
Français (French)
n. - (Phot) exposition (à la lumière)
idioms:
- to burn (Phot) exposer (à la lumière)
Deutsch (German)
n. - einbrennen (Farben usw.)
idioms:
- to burn brennen, in Flammen stehen, sich verbrennen, glühen
Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - προκαταρκτικό τεστ Η/Υ
Español (Spanish)
n. - daño causado a una pantalla (de ordenador o televisión) por dejarla encendida durante demasiado tiempo, prueba que consiste en dejar encendido por largo tiempo un aparato, para tratar de encontrar desperfectos en sus componentes electrónicos
idioms:
- to burn quemar, encender, consumir
Svenska (Swedish)
n. - felsökningsrutin (data)
中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
一种电子仪器的测试
中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 一種電子儀器的測試
العربيه (Arabic)
(الاسم) أجرى فحوص على أجهزة جديدة
עברית (Hebrew)
n. - חשיפת יתר של חלק מתצלום לאור כדי להבליט את הפרטים שבו
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